How do you empower those who do not wish to be empowered?

Power is the capacity to make decisions for or on behalf of others. Authority is doing so without having your right to do so questioned. But to be ‘empowered’ is to have the capacity to decide for one’s self. It is a type of freedom to act in accordance with one’s own beliefs, goals, aims, and passions, but one that is not limited to principle. Rather, empowerment extends to the material realm. To be empowered is not only to have “the right of doing” but also “the ability to do”. A cripple who has the right to travel wherever they wish but has not the means to do so (for lack of access ramps let’s say) is no more empowered than an able-bodied person who’s barred access. The ability to exercise one’s rights is an integral part of empowerment. Does this mean that all persons should be provided the material means to fully exercise each of their rights? If so, to what degree should these be provided, and who should provide them: the state, society at large, their immediate family or kin?

To empower another is to surrender some power to them, since one cannot empower without having the capacity to decide for or on behalf of those being empowered. One cannot allow women to vote if one does not themselves vote, and a slave cannot free another slave, nor can a master free the slaves they do not own, simply because they do not have the power or the authority to do so.

So why would a person or group who holds power over others choose to surrender part of that power? More puzzling still is why a person or group would reject being empowered.

To be free implies the possibility to voluntarily surrender your freedom.

If not empowerment, then what? What could these people be satisfied with? Can we conceive of social relations and human interactions in way that excludes power? Do we even have the vocabulary to describe such a situation? Can liberty exist without power?